The Last Dinner Party have pulled out of their set at Victorious Festival in Portsmouth, England today (Aug. 23), in solidarity with the Mary Wallopers, whose set was cut short on Friday after the Irish band showed their support for Palestine.
“We are outraged by the decision made to silence the Mary Wallopers yesterday at Victorious,” The Last Dinner Party posted in a statement on Instagram. “As a band we cannot cosign political censorship and will therefore be boycotting the festival today.”
On Friday, the Mary Wallopers were performing onstage and after they unfurled a Palestinian flag and called for a “Free Palestine,” their show was cut short. The band posted video from the incident on Instagram, where they appeared to enter the stage with a Palestinian flag and opened with a remark to “Free Palestine.” After they began performing, a Victorious crew member looked to confront the band about the flag, which was draped onstage, and then the crew member removed it.
“Free, free Palestine,” the band said from the stage, many in the audience could be heard joining in per the video. Immediately afterward, the band’s sound was cut and the crowd responded with boos. The band then brought the flag back out which elicited cheers, and more chants from the audience and band to “free Palestine.”
A rep for Victorious Festival did not immediately return Rolling Stone’s request for comment. A festival spokesperson told the BBC the show was ended after the band used “a chant which is widely understood to have a discriminatory context,” but did not provide specifics. In the Mary Wallopers’ video post, they rejected the festival’s claim and asked that the fest “retract their statement immediately.”
“The festival have released a misleading statement to the press claiming they cut our sound because of a discriminatory chant and not the band’s call to Free Palestine,” the band wrote. “Our video clearly shows a Victorious crew member coming on stage, interfering with our show, removing the flag from the stage and then the sound being cut following a chant of ‘Free Palestine.’ The same crew member is later heard in the video saying, ‘you aren’t playing until the flag is removed.’”
In the Last Dinner Party’s post on Saturday, they wrote, “As Gazans are deliberately plunged into catastrophic famine after two years of escalating violence it is urgent and obvious that artists use their platform to draw attention to the cause. To see an attempt to direct attention away from the genocide in order to maintain an apolitical image is immensely disappointing.” They also encouraged their fans to donate to medical aid for Palestinians, and signed the post with “Free Palestine.”
Throughout this year’s festival season, artists have been showing their support for Palestinians onstage. At Newport Folk Festival, the Resistance Revival Chorus sang a prayer for Gaza and actor-comedian John C. Reilly waved a Palestinian flag from the main stage. At Coachella earlier this year, Kneecap’s pro-Palestine messaging was cut from the festival’s livestream on the first weekend and sparked controversy on the second weekend. Kneecap member Mo Chara faces terror charges in the U.K. over a claim he allegedly displayed a Hezbollah flag onstage during a London concert in November 2024. Mo Chara and the band have repeatedly denied the allegations, stating previously that they “do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah.”
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